10 Percent of Americans Would Quit the Internet if Net Neutrality Dies

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10 Percent of Americans Would Quit the Internet if Net Neutrality Dies

Photo: Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

Everyone from Comcast to the courts to government regulators should take heed: People want their internet service provider to treat all online traffic equally.

According to a survey recently published by Consumer Reports, 71 percent of internet users would switch to another service provider if their ISP violated network neutrality – the notion that no internet traffic should receive preferential treatment over other traffic. Ten percent of respondents even said they would be willing to give up internet altogether before putting up with throttled connections.

The survey has particular resonance as Comcast, the country's largest cable internet provider, tries to purchase its biggest competitor, Time Warner Cable, and enters into a landmark deal with Netflix that will see the online TV and movie streaming service pay for direct access to the Comcast network. Comcast hasn't yet violated net neutrality – at least not the government's definition of net neutrality – but its recent deals with Time Warner and Netflix could pose a threat to neutrality in the long term.

The Consumer Reports survey would seem to indicate that Comcast will be motivated to maintain net neutrality – that a violation would send customers elsewhere. But there's a big wrinkle here: Users would need a competing service to actually move to, and options are limited in most cities. Ten percent of the survey's respondents may say they would give up internet entirely, but that leaves a majority of people stuck with a service they don't want. This, coupled with the reality that Comcast, as a TV and movie company in its own right, also competes with services it could potentially throttle on its network – is what makes the evolution of the ISP market so worrying.

Last month, a federal appeals court struck down the Federal Communication Commission's existing net neutrality rules. Although it did leave room for the FCC to regulate the internet, the decision has led to widespread fears that service providers will begin throttling speeds for certain types of internet traffic. Thanks to a previous deal with government regulators, Comcast is still required to obey the FCC's rules. But the complex nature of the internet and the way it dovetails with other communication systems means that violations of net neutrality aren't always easy to pin down.

As Netflix CEO Reed Hastings once pointed out, Comcast has discriminated against certain services with the way it handles customer bandwidth caps. Video streamed over services like Netflix may count against the cap, but video streamed through Comcast's Xfinity app may not. "The same device, the same IP address, the same Wi-Fi, the same internet connection, but totally different cap treatment," he said. "In what way is this neutral?"

These types of concerns were only amplified when Comcast agreed to buy Time Warner Cable, the country's second largest cable provider. Then Netflix entered an agreement to pay for direct access to Comcast's network in order to solve ongoing video quality issues. That will certainly help Netflix in the short term, but it's yet to be seen whether this sort of arrangement will lead to discrimination as others require direct access. Combined with previous news that AT&T will allow companies to sponsor data usage of their apps – which critics argue amounts to giving preferential treatment to companies willing to pay – there's quite a bit to worry about.

Meanwhile, the FCC has proposed a new set of rules to enforce network neutrality. And government regulators must rule on the Comcast-Time Warner deal. In both cases, there's much at stake. Seventy percent of Americans want their traffic treated fairly.